


When I Was A Kid

by OasisLake76



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime)
Genre: And I’ve been listening to all of Shane Koyczan poems, Ash showing his true feelings, Gen, This is mostly a spur of the moment fic, When I Was A Kid by Shane Koyczan, this fic is a MESS, this is my favorite one, ultimately because I’m a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26523229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OasisLake76/pseuds/OasisLake76
Summary: “When I was a kid,” Ash moved to face the giant crowd of people in the stadium sets, “I hid my heart under the bed because my mother said ‘If you're not careful, someday, someone's gonna break it.’ Take it from me,” he snorted into his microphone in his hand and tried to keep a tired sneer off his face, “under the bed is not a good hiding spot. I know because I've been shot down so many times I get altitude sickness just from standing up for myself.”
Relationships: Ash Ketchum & Champions, Satoshi | Ash Ketchum & Satoshi no Pikachu | Ash Ketchum's Pikachu, theres more - Relationship
Comments: 15
Kudos: 89





	When I Was A Kid

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of my favorite Shane Koyczan poems of all time and I constantly think that Ash could really relate to most of it so I wrote this! 
> 
> I don’t own the poem, Shane Koyczan Does, nor do I own any Pokémon character

“When I was a kid,” Ash moved to face the giant crowd of people in the stadium sets, “I hid my heart under the bed because my mother said  _ ‘If you're not careful, someday, someone's gonna break it.’ _ Take it from me,” he snorted into his microphone in his hand and tried to keep a tired sneer off his face, “under the bed is not a good hiding spot. I know because I've been shot down so many times I get altitude sickness just from standing up for myself.”

Ash didn’t even have to bother to look at the other, older, adult Champions to know they were looking at him with eyes full of worry. He doesn’t think he could stomach taking the look with the words he was about to say to over a million people and the national live cameras that were rolling at that moment. “When I was a kid, I could fill a  _ bookshelf _ with every different way they would tell me how  _ not _ to play.” Ash sneered openly at that. Too many thoughts of adults and kids alike snipping at him throughout his childhood. 

“They'd say  _ ‘It's time to start putting childish things away.’ _ And I was like,  _ ‘fuck you! This is Skeletor.’ _ But more and more they made me believe that our hearts are like door knocks, and that's where we get the sound of a beat. And I'll never get to meet the man inside me if I can't stand still long enough to be there, I'll never make it anywhere if I keep running away, I'll never know myself if all I ever do is play nikki-nikki-nine doors, ‘ _ do you wanna be a man?’” _

“When I was a kid,” Ash looked back at the audience, a tired smile fitting over his lips like a well worn mask,  _ “I wanted to be a man.  _ I wanted to register a retirement savings plan that'd keep me and candy long enough to make old age  _ sweet.”  _ Another chuckle slipped through his lips. Pained and soaked with weariness. “I wanted two left feet so I could dance circles around important issues until way past my bedtime.”

“I'm not saying I don't have  _ opinions, _ just that others were less likely to  _ argue _ if they were as tired as  _ I was,  _ fatigued as to a man does what a good night kiss does to kids, it puts weights on our eyelids and returns us to a place where reason and imagination lace together shoes whose tongues stick out at stillness and beckon us to move forward.” A shaky breath and move to the right a bit. Away from Leon who stands by his left where everyone else in the Champion line up was definitely staring at him in shock. 

“As a kid, I was always drawn toward moonlight, despite an armada of adults who insist I must set my days according to sunlight. I would lay in bed, and fight sleep, believing if I shut my eyes, even for an  _ instant, _ I would miss out on something amazing.” Ash sighed again. Shifting his weight from one foot to the other while glancing off to the right side of the stadium. It was nearly deathly silent besides some soft calls of rumbles from the various Pokémon in the stands and Pikachu’s comforting purring right by his ear. 

“Turns out I was right. I have seen stars stamped into the night like cookie cutter designs.” He threw his hand that wasn’t holding the microphone, and that Pikachu wasn’t laying on his shoulder, up in the air. Like Ash could just make the sky dim and show the galaxy full of stars above everyone in that moment. 

“Drew lines in-between each one, inventing new constellations so that when somebody asked me,  _ ‘What's your sign?’ _ I could point to mine, the one hanging over the first door past the finish line, and say  _ ‘It's right there. The one marked  _ exit.’ Because one day all this getting ahead  _ bullshit _ will be  _ over,  _ and people will start looking for me, and I'll be there. I'll wear my best flashing red and you,” Ash finally turned to look at the Champions who had multiple unreadable expressions on their face. “you will stand winner circle thorough-bred I will un-thread the screws that would put you throughout this life, then smile and say,  _ ‘You made it.’” _

“When I was a kid, I traded in homework assignments for friendship, and gave my friends a late slip for never showing up on time, and in most cases, not at all.” Ash took a sharp breath at the confession. Fully knowing well the entirety of Pallet Town is watching him in that moment. “I gave myself a hall pass to get through each broken promise. And I remember this plan, Born out of frustration from a kid who kept calling me  _ ‘yogi’ _ . Then pointed to my tummy and said,  _ ‘too many picnic baskets.’”  _ He could just see Jason McDonalds sour expression as that utter fucking asshole just knew what Ash was going to say next.

“Turns out it's not that hard to trick someone. And one day, before class, I said  _ ‘Yeah... You can copy my homework.’  _ And I gave him all the wrong answers that I'd written down the night before. He got his paper back, expecting a near perfect score, and couldn't believe it when he looked across the room at me and held up a zero.” Ash could count every inch that his anxiety rose. Forcing himself to still his hands and not gag into the microphone or gently push Pikachu off because his shoulders are starting to feel unbearably heavy. Forcing the need to drop everything and hurl over the stage and to keep the threatening tears on bay. His voice still cracked, heavy with too much emotional weight in the words, and it still sounded like he’s on the verge of screaming. 

“I know I didn't have to hold up my paper of twenty-eight out of thirty, but my satisfaction was complete when he looked at me puzzled and I thought to myself,” Ash let a sharp vindictive smile, born full of sharp teeth and broken edges, glint in the spotlights that shine down on him in that moment,  _ “Smarter than the average bear, motherfucker.”  _ His voice sounded so cruel to his ears. Heavy with anger when not too long ago it felt like a water damn was behind his words instead. Threatening to burst with the littlest nudge. 

Ash couldn’t remember the last time a stadium this big was so quiet. Pikachu’s purrs sound like thunder rolling over the nearby hills while Ash can feel his own heart beat against the back of his tongue… or maybe that’s vomit. He lets his lips fall and face away towards the ground as the next words build in his throat before Ash’s mind could catch up to it. “When I was a kid, I slid love letters through the slots of lockers that belonged to my secret crushes. Built paintbrushes from the tiny hairs that stood on end every time I saw them. My brain stem finally bloomed with thoughts.” 

He unknowingly got louder. Backed by his own anger towards his youth and sadness that he never even got a childhood that wasn’t painted by death with every footstep forward. “I connected dots and made masterpieces. Each brushstroke a thesis dedicated to the explanation that you, not knowing who I was, was only because  _ anonymity _ made it  _ easier _ to be  _ brave.”  _ Pikachu gave a loud sound, or loud to him, and Ash for a moment feared that it caught on the microphone and that nearly made him waver. The only thing keeping him on track was the fact that this is the first time Ash actually felt lava boiling in his veins and razor blades at the top of his tongue like it did back when he was young. A son of a bastard father that walked away and a mother worked to her bones before Ash was even six years old. 

“I dipped my brush into a tidal wave of I hope this will one day wash over me.” He turns to the sky. Clouded and gray and for an instance, a tiny minuscule millisecond, he thought he heard a wolf cry in the distance. “I can guarantee, if you've ever had a secret admirer, it was someone very much like me who loved someone very much like you.” Ash felt the razors turn into knives. Resting flat against his tongue and the roof of his mouth like he could aim and spit it directly into someone’s heart. “It was someone who wanted to tell you how much you've meant. How every second we spend thinking of you was simply the cost of getting us through the hard times.” 

“We saved nickels and dimes hoping our first date would be with you, so the disappointment of love we gave up comic books and video games.” The howling great louder but from the looks of the people in the stadium bleachers they didn’t even have a clue. Tilting his chin up more he let certainty turn in his stomach and sorrow settled in his bones. Speaking the loudest he ever had and let the anger bleed so much in his words that Ash almost felt surprised they didn’t physically form in front of him, oozing with blood that might have been his once in the past. “I promise you, every guy I have ever met remembers the names of the ones they loved first. That our thirst for love continues as we cross the deserts of maybe. Believing, we will find an oasis of yes.” 

_ Yes _ echoed across the stadium. Like someone who was listening to every barbed wire word that passed through Ash’s scared lips whispered it back. “We acquiesce, yes.” This time… this time Ash looked to Lance. To Wallace; to Cynthia; to Alder; to Diantha; to Leon. Taking in their wide eyed looks and how their muscles twitch like they need to stalk over and hide Ash in a home crushing hug. “We probably should have just said something, but we were  _ chicken shit.” _ Ash hopes they do. Once this is all over and they get to go home. 

His eyes traveled to Lance’s and every razor, knife,  _ dagger,  _ slipped from his throat and settled back down into his stomach. Jabbing his lungs and slashing his heart. “We lit the fuses of our hearts and exploded every time you walked on by.” Lance, the man he looks to as a  _ father,  _ looked like he  _ failed.  _ Shame and guilt edged across his face and his honey eyes glistened with what Ash could only assume was stubborn tears. 

Facing the still silent crowd, Ash took a deep breath. This one almost echoed in the silence and Pikachu pressed up against his head more. “When I was a kid, I did stupid shit.” Voice wobbling he could remember what he’s about to say next like it’s a thing he repeats every day. “Ripped the women's underwear section out of the Sears Christmas wish catalog and  _ blamed it on my Grandad.” _ At this moment he was referring to Professor Oak. The only man who ever came close to an actual grandparent this Ash’s on biological ones on either of his dad and mom’s side. 

Leon let out a strangled noise next to him. Almost like the Galarian wanted to sputter into a laugh. He probably did the same when he was younger. 

“He did end up covering for me and had only this to say,  _ ‘You're only twelve! So I'm impressed, but take it from experience don't hide that under your mattress,’” _ Shrugging his shoulders, Ash looked back towards the floor between his shoes, “So I didn't. I hid it in the empty box of a board game that I never used to play.” An unbidden smile, just a small one, rose to his lips. Unnoticeable to the naked eye. “And on the day when my Grandmother eventually found it, she reamed him out for hiding pornography in her grandson's bedroom.” Another lie. Daisy had found it going through the closest and had only guess it was Professor Oak because only Ash and Gary played that game and they hadn’t played it since they were small. 

“The impending doom of the truth set upon me like a die in the sun sending its last ray of light over the horizon and aimed directly at me.  _ He didn't say a word.”  _ Ash put so much stress in the last sentence he could almost reach out and physically grab it out of the air. “Incurred the full wrath and laughed with me later saying,  _ ‘It's like your heart, it doesn't matter where you hide it. Lovers are like little kids lifting up a rock looking for an insect, they will  _ find _ that shit.’”  _

“When I was a kid, I trusted myself enough to know that one day I'd be a man.” He barely felt human at this point. “One day I'd have a childhood for a past and a future for a backup plan.” He barely had a natural healthy childhood either. 

With the next set of words Ash tried to fit as much truth, belief, and conviction into his words. So much so his heart hurt and it felt the barbs around it tightened. “That every gauntlet I ever ran was a potato sack race in which time would chase me further toward an ending. I am bending myself back to the beginning, reminding myself there is no winning any race against yourself,” he took a deep breath and softened the edges of his eyes,  _ “slow down.  _ And when the kid in you falls, turn around, pick them up, dust them off, then continue.”

That was a hard lesson for Ash to learn in his youth. Not everything needed to be a race to the finish. Sometimes it’s best to stop and look, to see what’s around you in detail and not as a blur at the side of his eyes, and only then did he realize how lovely the world he lives in is. How much this cold piece of dirt is filled with humans who radiate warmth and love. 

“Trust me you are gonna  _ need _ that kid.” The panic was keeping up again. This time wasn’t barbed or sharp like a knife but it felt like a sneaker wave creeping up on him. “You are gonna need someone to remind you that every weed is a flower. Just trying to make shit  _ work.  _ That every jerk you ever encounter is just another someone who somehow forgot it's okay to need a hug. It's  _ okay _ to be  _ afraid.”  _

He stopped. Hoping to Arceus that his words reached the people in his past who hated him. Hoping people like Paul and Trip were listening to every word and sitting at the edge of their seat just waiting to hear the next. Because Ash was almost like them once, and he wished someone said the same thing he’s speaking now to the entire world to him,  _ that it’s okay to be afraid.  _

“When I was a kid, I played hopscotch with the lines they drew in the sand. Landed on the conclusion that second hand clothes, at least to the benefit of experience, and I've got a one-hundred thirty-seventh hand heart. Broken apart and stitched back together at the seams.” Ash lies to think that his heart holds little pieces that his friends gave him. Trust woven between their pieces and his, keeping his heart together and beating to the song of their love and hope, with memories like stickers stuck all over. “I've cartwheeled across balance beams made from the broken finger bones of people who could not let go of this life.” 

The late elusive Dex Holders came to mind. Memories of Arceus laying in an open field just big enough in the woods and Ash sitting on an old thick tree stump just a few feet away. Of the God of all Gods telling Ash how he tried to create them like how Ash was created, a Chosen One or more for each region, only to fail as the balance of life was tipped too much towards one side and their life had to be taken. It’s also the reason why Ash dies so much. It’s just the balance restoring itself as much as it can. Though he openly admitted that it wasn’t fair and Arceus… Arceus seemed so human in that instant. That small millisecond where sorrow and sadness filled the air as they apologize to  _ Ash. _ How that if they could change it they would but this has to happen. 

Forcing himself to stop reminiscing, Ash looked towards the gray sky. Slowly dimming as the sun must be setting behind it. “I still love the night.” It felt like a prayer leaving his lips. A truth amongst the pain and lies. Raising his free hand towards the sky, like Ash could actually touch the stars so high above. “I love the fact that, if you squint your eyes just right, stars look like porcupines of light stumbling across the dark, dipping their quills into the night trying to write apologies for all of the unanswered wishes from the times we once wished upon them.” 

Ash frowned then. Lowering his hands back down to his side and Pikachu muttering it’s living chirps directly into his ear for only him. “Sometimes I still wish, and most times I wish I didn't have to,” the next words were a struggle for him to even mutter into the microphone in his hand, sorrow and pain filling every nook and cranny in his bones and skin, _ “I wish I didn't have to wish.” _ A few tears slipped past his barricade. Not enough to crack the damn but enough for everyone to notice as Ash took a deep shuddering breath to force himself back and push the pain away as much as he could in that moment. 

“So… I guess what I'm saying is that I hope, I hope I never forget that kid who grew up inside me. You just seem to laugh a little bit louder.” Memories of Ash laughing freely for the first time in front of Brock and Misty were pushed to the forefront. How his face turned red as he realized what he’d done and how he hid away in the woods afterwards in embarrassment but disguised as going to grab more firewood. 

“Smile just a little bit longer.” The feeling of sore muscles around his lips as he couldn’t help but not keep smiling when Ash was around Max and May. The duo having this energy that Ash wanted to emulate himself. Learn to coax those stubborn trainers like Drew was to not be such a dick like May did. 

“Loved a whole lot stronger.” Ash didn’t know what having a sister felt like until Dawn. The dark navy haired girl gossiping and looking up to Ash when she was having a problem after pouting for an hour. How she would always sneak one of their room cards away without notice when they stayed at a hotel, only to slip into his and Brock's shared room and into Ash’s bed. Piplup jumped up onto the bed only to curl around Pikachu and shine it’s forehead into the ‘Mons fluffy yellow chest. 

“World's first official awesome monger. Taking  _ ‘awesome’ _ from door to door. Take as much as you need, don't worry about me,  _ I got more.” _ Ash snorted pathetically. Knowing all too well how much Pallet town, the world, took from him in the past. “I got a candy store filled with whatever it's gonna take to make tomorrow  _ sweet.”  _ Ain’t that the truth. 

He spread his arms wide and flashed another dangerous smile, less so then the last. “I've got two left feet and no bedtime!” Rung through the stadium before a tired smile took over and the sharp edges dulled. “I'm still not brave enough to have an orgy, but I rock the slumber party come  _ nap  _ with me.” The memories of all the times he was used as a pillow or Ash used someone else as a pillow popped up. Sweet moments amongst the chaos and how Ash cling to each one like they made one life line above the pit of hell that made everything else up. 

Diantha and Cynthia snorted loud enough for Ash to hear but not for their own microphones, which Ash might think were shut off at some point through his rant, to pick up. Which brought a little warmth to his body because of how true that statement is and Ash meant the napping part. 

“First one to fall asleep  _ loses. _ First one to fall asleep  _ wins.” _ He breathed. “The race stops at the start and the finish line is where it begins, so this time, the first one to lose wins.” How many times Aah lost that particular race. Soothing his friends, his family’s, fear and sorrow away in preference to his own personal struggle and pain. How he would stay up night after night with Max and Bonnie. Making sure that the mean people from the past don’t rear their ugly heads like they fear. 

“I know we never meant to turn our hearts into garbage bins, It was an accident.” Even now, with his own panic threatening to take over, Ash tried to put as much soothing conviction into his voice. A weak attempt at a ‘sorry’ for all the other harsh words he admitted to the world. A sorry for being weak. “I know the headlines about us giving up were a misprint, and really just bad reporting. I know we've been boarding up all the windows from the outside in. We've been doing it ever since they told us to start letting things go, and I know we got into the habit of throwing everything away.” 

“But your heart is a door knock, and every time it beats, it's just that kid's way of asking.” Taking another deep breath for the umpteenth time Ash tried to soften his eyes as much as he could as he spoke the last of his words that he wanted to say. 

_ “Can you please come out and play?” _

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] When I Was A Kid by OasisLake76](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28597947) by [Soyvolon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soyvolon/pseuds/Soyvolon)




End file.
